Stephen F Austin to Israel Waters, 07-30-1829

Summary: Thanking him for a bottle of rum distilled in Texas. Thinks the manufacture of spirits bound to develop in Texas. Would be opposed to it but for the fact that spirits will be imported if not made in Texas.

sir I have recd your letter of 23 int. together with a bottle of rum
made by you at Mr. Martin Varners this is the first ardent spirits
of any kind that was ever made in this colony, and I beleive it to be
the first that was ever made in Texas. The distillery of rum from
molasses is destined at no distant period to become a source of great
wealth to this country, for besides supplying the home consumption,
there will be a great and increasing surplus for exportation— As
the first who has attempted to establish a branch of industry which
must ultimately be the means of giving profitable imploy to
thousands of hands and of drawing thousands of dollars into the
country, Mr. Varner is certainly entitled to great credit for his entrprise—

Philanthropy cannot but weep at the incalculable mass of human
misery and degradation which the use of ardent spirits heaps upon
mankind, and were it possible to exclude it from our country for
ever, the first who attempted to introduce it would be ranked by
me on a level with the fiend who first introduced sin into the garden
of Eden, but like sin, the use of spirits pervades the whole civilised
world, (savages and barbarians are not sufficiently civilized to
brutalise in this refined way) and Philanthopy has no consolation, other
than that derivable from the hope that the sound judgement and
moral rectitude of man will restrain the use of spirits to proper and
safe limits.

I am therefore not displeased to see this branch of business
commenced. Spirits will be imported and if not manufactured in the
country, money will be sent out to import it, and it is better that the
money which is thrown away by the drunken and worthless part of
our citizens should go into the pockets of our own distillers, than
into the pockets of foreigners

For these reasons I accept of the present of the bottle of Rum
which you have sent me, and in return wish Mr Varner and yourself
success and prosperity in your distillery